


Missing

by SuperAwesomePandaKitty



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Hinata, F/M, Fluff, Hurt Naruto, Hurt/Comfort, I will tag more characters and stuff the more chapters I get into it, Kidnapped Naruto, Literally any other pairings in this are just hinted at, a dash of SasuSaku, like the tiniest hint of Sai and Ino
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 00:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2831168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperAwesomePandaKitty/pseuds/SuperAwesomePandaKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After their date, Naruto gets kidnapped and nobody notices for a day or two. As Naruto is being sedated and confined, Kurama can't get out so he contacts Gyuki in order to get help. Hinata, with the help of her teammates are sent to rescue him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this story is something I've been wanting to write for a while, it's a multi-chapter but I don't think there will be too many so I hope you enjoy. :)

Naruto was walking home after another date night with Hinata. He had walked over to meet her at the Hyuuga compound at 5 and they went to Ichiraku's for dinner, after that they went to the top of the Hokage monument and sat down together to look at the Christmas lights that surrounded the village.

Naruto was watching Hinata with a soft smile as she looked down at the village in awe; he loved how her eyes lit up in childlike wonder.

"The village looks so beautiful from here." Hinata said softly, turning to see Naruto still staring at her, causing a small blush to warm up on her cheeks.

Naruto noticed her blush and looked away awkwardly as he realised he'd been caught staring at her and awkwardly rubbed his neck. "Sorry Hinata, I didn't realise." He apologised quietly.

Hinata shook her head quickly and rubbed her hands together shyly. "I-I don't mind Naruto-Kun." She replied with a shy smile. Naruto turned to look at her again with a slightly warmer face than before, then he noticed her rubbing her hands together.

"Are you cold?" He asked her worriedly, he wasn't too cold but he was wearing the scarf Hinata had re-knitted for him which kept him warm.

"A little but I'm okay." Hinata replied, smiling happily at his concern for her. As Naruto began unzipping his jacket and took it off, Hinata's face fell. "What are you doing? You're going to get a cold." She asked him worriedly.

Naruto put his jacket around her shoulders with a warm smile. "I'll be okay; I've got the scarf you gave me to keep me warm. I don't want you to be cold so you should wear my jacket-ttebayo." Naruto replied with his smile he reserved only for her and any argument Hinata had died in her throat and she accepted the jacket shyly. She pushed her arms through the jacket and zipped it up, subtly revelling in the smell that was uniquely Naruto.

"Thank you, Naruto-Kun." Hinata said with a smile, she was beginning to feel warmer already and she turned to look at the village again. The villagers were all milling around peacefully, some were shopping and others were sitting outside restaurants while talking happily to each other. Naruto resumed watching Hinata, thinking back to how she was always watching him, even when he thought he was all alone and he just never noticed. Looking at her now, a part of him felt angry at himself for not noticing her feelings sooner but as she turned back to him and gave him a bright smile, he felt those feelings disappear instantly and couldn't help but grin back.

"Would you like to head back now? It's getting colder, if you don't want to go home yet we could go somewhere and get tea or something?" Naruto asked her, looking at her worriedly when he could see her breath quicken as the temperature dropped.

"Okay, I have a mission tomorrow so I will have to get up early but I don't mind going somewhere else with you." Hinata replied shyly.

Naruto smiled happily. "Great, well we've already been to Ichiraku's so I don't think we should go there...but Sakura-Chan recommended this tea house she said she and Ino would go to when they met up with Temari." Naruto suggested scratching his cheek in thought.

"Hikari's Tea House?" Hinata asked excitedly, eyes lighting up in that childlike way again.

"Yeah that was it! Do you want to go there?" Naruto asked with an amused chuckle, already knowing the answer.

"Yes please, if that's okay with you. I haven't been able to go for ages and I just love it there, there are these beautiful animal decorations and their tea is the best." Hinata answered cheerfully.

"Well then, let's go dattebayo." Naruto said, standing up and offering his hand out to help Hinata stand up, which Hinata accepted gratefully. Naruto shyly kept his hold on Hinata's hand as they headed towards the village, they had been dating for a few weeks, just over a month but they would still sometimes be shy around each other.

As they were walking towards the tea shop, some villagers would wave or call out to them happily; they had just saved the world from being crushed by the moon so it was no surprise that the Konoha 11 were local celebrities, some villagers would also visit Neji's grave because of his brave efforts in the war.

When they headed into the tea shop, they sat down at a table and ordered their teas. Naruto watched Hinata with an amused expression as Hinata began looking around at all the beautiful decorations; Naruto had to admit that she was right; some of the animal sculptures were works of art.

"So where is your mission Hinata?" Naruto asked her curiously, thanking the waitress when she came down with their teas and handing her some money; Naruto had been paid for a mission he had just completed a few days ago so he knew he would definitely be able to afford anything Hinata wanted for their date.

"It's a small village near the Cloud village, there are quite a few rogue ninja that have decided to try and overthrow the Raikage-Sama and they have requested our help. Kiba-Kun doesn't understand why they asked us as they have many talented ninjas, but Shino-Kun thinks it's because the majority of Cloud ninjas have lightning ninjutsus and these Rogue ninja must have a way to counteract it or have more powerful jutsus, I have the Byakugan so I would be able to tell their chakra nature and just exactly what kind of jutsus they might use." Hinata replied worriedly.

"Well I know you will be amazing; you're a lot stronger than you think Hinata." Naruto told her reassuringly with a genuine smile, having every confidence in her.

"I hope so," Hinata replied uncertainly, she then shook her head and looked up determinedly, feeling reassured by his faith in her. "I'll do my best."

"Well I believe in you and I know you won't need it but if it makes you feel better, good luck dattebayo!" Naruto said with a grin.

Hinata beamed warmly, gaining a confidence boost at his words. "Thank you Naruto-Kun, that makes me feel a lot better."

Naruto stared at her smile, feeling warm in his chest and happy that he could make her smile like that, even if only for a little while. They finished up their teas and Naruto walked Hinata home, identical grins on their faces as they walked hand in hand with each other.

Naruto walked Hinata to her front door, smiling shyly at her as he leaned closer to her and kissed her softly on the lips, both of their faces had gone an interesting shade of scarlet, even though they had done this numerous times.

Naruto pulled back reluctantly. "Good luck on your mission Hinata...and please be safe." He whispered softly as he gave her a tight hug. Hinata hugged him back just as tight, not wanting the perfect night to end.

"I'll do my best Naruto-Kun." She told him, Naruto pulled away, trying and failing to hide his worry for her.

"I'll see you when you get back." Naruto told her, backing away slowly with a small wave as he turned for his apartment. Hinata watched him walk for a few seconds before noticing she still had his jacket.

"Naruto-Kun! Your jacket!" She called, walking after him worriedly as she tried to unzip it quickly.

"It's alright; you can keep it until you get back from your mission. I want it back in one piece." Naruto told her with a small smile, he bent down to kiss her cheek.

"Are you sure? Won't you be cold?" Hinata asked anxiously, secretly wanting to keep the jacket but worrying he would catch a cold.

"Like I said, I have your scarf to keep me warm; I can always use my ninja jacket so it's really okay. Don't worry about me." He told her with a grin. "Now go inside before you catch a cold-ttebayo."

"Thank you, see you soon." Hinata told him, before reluctantly turning away and walking quickly to her door, she turned around and waved as she knew he was watching to make sure she got home safe before entering her house and hugging the jacket to her.

Naruto smiled to himself as he thought over their date, things had been going well and he was incredibly happy. He rounded the corner to his apartment and quickened his pace, he opened the door to his apartment and cheerfully said his customary "I'm home," fully aware that no one would reply but he was in such a good mood he couldn't bring himself to care.

He went and took a shower before changing into his pyjamas, not noticing the shadow that seemed to cross the room. Before he knew it, an arm was around his neck; trying to suffocate him. Naruto struggled, breaking some plates he had left on the table as he fought against his unknown assailant. He managed to elbow his attacker in the stomach but not before he felt a sharp prick on his neck, he turned around and grabbed a kunai he had hidden in the couch. He was about to make an attack when he noticed that the one attacker was blurring into three and he wasn't sure whether it was a genjutsu or maybe the ninja had this ability but he knew something was definitely wrong when he felt himself get groggy, he stumbled to the right while reaching up to feel around his neck.

"What did you do to me?" Naruto slurred, before he fell over and everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the next chapter, I don't think there'll be any more than 10 chapters but I could be eating my words the more this fic gets away from me. Hope you enjoy! :3

Hinata woke up at 6 in order to prepare for her mission, she debated on whether to take Naruto's jacket with her as she didn't want it to get damaged but she packed it into her bag before she could change her mind. She then went into the kitchen and packed the food supplies she had prepared before her date the night before, taking the time to eat breakfast as she still had some time to spare.

Hanabi walked into the kitchen like a zombie, bed hair nearly covering her face which caused Hinata to chuckle slightly.

"Uggggghhhh, what time is it?" Hanabi asked sleepily, rubbing her eye and unsuccessfully trying to push the hair away from her face.

"It's 06:30, what are you doing up?" Hinata asked with an amused expression.

"I heard you get up but it's okay, I need to get up for training anyway." Hanabi replied, reaching for the kettle to make herself some tea.

"Would you like me to make that for you? I still have some time left so I'll make you some breakfast." Hinata said, finishing up her slice of toast before standing, reaching over to take the kettle from the sleepy girl and shooing her towards the table.

"Thank you Onee-Sama." Hanabi said, taking a seat at the table, brushing her hair out of her eyes successfully this time.

Hinata gave her tired sister an affectionate smile before getting to work, she set Hanabi's tea and toast down in front of her before taking a seat with her own tea.

"Are you training with Father today?" Hinata asked her curiously.

Hanabi paused with a small blush. "No, I'm training with Konohamaru-Kun today." She replied quietly.

Hinata smiled brightly at her sister's blush. "Konohamaru-Kun? Well good luck, I hope you have fun." Hinata replied sincerely.

Hanabi looked at Hinata with a small smile. "Hai. Good luck on your mission Onee-Sama, come home safe." Hanabi told her.

"Thank you." Hinata replied before noticing the time. "Oh, I need to go; Kiba-Kun and Shino-Kun want to meet at 07:15 at the Hokage tower so we can be briefed on our mission." Hinata said quickly as she got up.

"Onee-Sama? Are you going to see Naruto-Nii-San before you go?" Hanabi asked her quickly.

"Well I'm not sure, Naruto doesn't normally get up this early on his days off, or from what I hear from Sakura-Chan, even on mission days. It's okay though, we saw each other last night and he wished me well for my mission." Hinata told her, she then looked at her sister curiously. "Why?"

"No reason, Konohamaru-Kun said that if Naruto-Nii-San didn't get up early then we're going to ask him to train with us." Hanabi replied cheerfully.

"Well good luck waking him, I don't think he'd mind training with you." Hinata told her honestly before hugging her sister and walking off quickly to pack the rest of her things.

When she had finished packing, she walked over to her father's study and knocked the screen door, after hearing a "come in", she entered the room.

"Hello Father, I thought I would let you know I'm off for my mission." Hinata informed Hiashi politely.

"Ah Hinata, you will be careful wont you?" Hiashi asked her worriedly, Hiashi had become kinder to his eldest daughter as he realised he could have lost her many times over the years.

"I will, I have to get going now though." Hinata replied. Hiashi walked over to Hinata and pulled her into a hug.

"Remember, the Hyuuga are the strongest clan in the leaf, you will be fine. You've trained very hard all these years and you are very strong, I am proud of you Hinata and I know your mother would be proud of you too." Hiashi told her kindly.

Hinata held back the tears that were threatening to come out, she nodded happily, too emotional to speak. She walked over to the shrine of her mother and knelt down to pray, before going to Neji's shrine and doing the same. With a polite wave to her father, she lifted her pack that she had left at the front door before walking out of the Hyuuga compound and heading towards the Hokage tower to meet her teammates.

"Hello Shino-Kun" Hinata greeted as she saw Shino standing alone by the Hokage tower.

"Hello Hinata, Kiba's running a little late but he and Akamaru should be here soon." Shino replied quietly.

"Okay, have you everything packed for the mission? Do you have enough food and things like that?" Hinata asked him worriedly, she did this before every mission; caring for her teammates.

"I should have enough food to last a week but if I run out, I could always just get supplies in the Cloud Village." Shino told her with a smile so small that if you didn't know Shino well, you wouldn't even notice but Hinata knew Shino inside out and smiled kindly at him.

"Sorry I'm late you guys! Akamaru decided it would be a great idea to roll around the garden and he had to get a bath." Kiba shouted as he ran towards them, Akamaru grumpily following behind him.

"It's okay Kiba-Kun, we weren't waiting that long." Hinata told him cheerfully. "Sorry you had to get a bath Akamaru." Hinata told the ninja dog sympathetically, Akamaru perked up and bounded over to her happily, earning himself a scratch behind the ear before giving a grumpy look towards Kiba when he sighed.

"It wasn't that bad, you know you're not supposed to do that, especially when we have a mission." Kiba informed the dog, "if it makes you feel any better, I'm sorry but in my defence it had to be done and mom wouldn't have let you leave the house like that." Kiba told him defensively. Akamaru looked at him suspiciously before deeming Kiba's apology as sincere and ran over to jump up and lick his face.

"Kiba-Kun, do you have everything you need?" Hinata asked him with a concerned look.

"Yep, should have enough to do me and Akamaru for the week, if not, I have extra food pills as well." Kiba told her, both Akamaru and he giving her matching grins.

"Right, let's go, we need to be briefed by the Hokage-Sama before we go on this mission." Shino said seriously, he turned and walked into the Hokage Tower, not waiting to see if the others were following him.

"Hello Hinata, Shino, Kiba and Akamaru, how are you this morning?" Kakashi asked them politely.

"We're doing well Hokage-Sama." Shino informed him; he was the spokesperson for the group.

"Well the Kaminari Village is a small peaceful village just on the outskirts of the Cloud Village, however, it has been taken over by a group of rogue ninjas and they plan to overthrow the Raikage. So they have requested our assistance to help them as they are using a machine to stop their lightning ninjutsu and as you may have guessed, the majority of the Cloud's ninjutsu is lightning. Hinata, we will need you to use your Byakugan to see what kind of chakra they have and what type of ninjutsu they may use. Shino, we need you to try and disable the machinery and Kiba we will need you to stop as many of them as you can while Shino is doing that. Now I know I don't need to say this but look after each other, the Raikage cannot provide you with anyone other than maybe his brother Killer Bee, but as I'm sure you can tell, he'd be reluctant to do so due to the fact that along with the 8-tails chakra; he also has lightning ninjutsu." Kakashi informed them with a concerned look.

There was a knock at the door and Kakashi called them in. "You asked to see me Hokage-Sama." Shikamaru asked as he walked in.

"Yes Shikamaru, I would like you to go on this mission as well, there's a lot more to this than meets the eye and I feel like you would figure it out." Kakashi informed him, handing over a scroll with their mission written in detail.

Shikamaru opened the scroll and began reading. "Tch...Troublesome, I'll go but I just need to run home and pack. I hope you guys don't mind waiting? I'll be 20 minutes." Shikamaru said as turned to the group.

"No it's alright, would you like us to wait at the front gates for you?" Hinata asked him with a fond smile, glad that Shikamaru would be with them as well.

"Sure, I'll meet you there." Shikamaru told his friends with a smile before waving quickly and rushing off.

"Good luck on your mission; I have the utmost faith in you guys." Kakashi told them, smiling through his mask fondly.

"Hai, see you when we come back." Hinata told him politely, before following her teammates out the door.

The group walked to the main gate and waited quietly for Shikamaru to finish packing, after 10 minutes he rushed over to them, which was very uncharacteristic of the usually lazy ninja but he seemed to have taken his missions very seriously after the war.

"We'll it's two days travel to the Cloud Village so we'll run for a few hours then we can take a break. Sound good?" Shikamaru asked as he consulted the map to find the quickest and safest route to the Cloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter, don't worry they'll notice Naruto's disappearance in the next one and hopefully you won't have to wait too long :3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter :3

Hanabi met Konohamaru at the training grounds. "Hello Konohamaru-Kun, what's wrong? You look a bit annoyed." Hanabi asked him worriedly when she noticed his expression.

"I went over to Naruto-Nii-Chan's place and knocked his door for ages and he didn't answer, I couldn't sense his chakra either so I guessed he wasn't in, asked everyone I could think of and no one has seen him. I think he might have gone off after Hinata-Sama...but I wanted him to train with us today." Konohamaru explained with a pout.

"Well Onee-Sama said he already saw her last night and wished her good luck on her mission and she said it would be highly unlikely that he would be awake at this time." Hanabi replied quickly. "Maybe he woke up and went to Ichiraku's for breakfast?" Hanabi suggested trying to cheer Konohamaru up.

"Nah, I already checked there and a few other places. We can still train without him if you want? There's just a new stage in the Rasengan he promised to teach me." Konohamaru told her, shaking off his negative feelings with a smile.

"Sure, Father taught me a new technique 8 – Trigrams 64 Palms." Hanabi said confidently, getting into her stance, she tucked her Kunai with the doll attached into her back pocket and concentrated her chakra.

At the hospital, Sakura was busy seeing to patients while Ino was talking to her as she was on her break.

"Sakura, I don't know what to do! Sai drew a rose with his ninjutsu and gave it to me yesterday, and then he said I was very ugly and walked off." Ino exclaimed, still annoyed at the 'ugly' comment.

Sakura chuckled softly as she administered an IV to an older lady, who also chuckled. "It's not funny!" Ino said annoyed as she blew her fringe out of her face.

"I think it's hilarious, he can be so clueless at times." Sakura told her with a smirk. "I suppose you can be too if you don't know what he means."

"What do you mean by that?!" Ino growled. "He called me ugly, there is no other meaning." Ino added indignantly.

Sakura sighed, taking pity on her friend. "Look Ino, you know the way he reads books on human behaviours?" Sakura asked her with a pointed look.

"Well yeah, he told me Naruto went over and looked at one of his books before his first date with Hinata." Ino answered with a chuckle.

"He's another hopeless case, honestly." Sakura sighed in amusement, "anyway, a couple of years ago, Sai called me ugly and I punched him for it; the book told him that you have to call a girl the opposite of what she is." Sakura told her sympathetically.

Ino looked shocked for a moment before smiling. "So he gave me a rose and basically called me beautiful?" Ino asked her with hopeful eyes.

"Of course he did girl, you look too gorgeous for any man to call you ugly!" The older woman interrupted with a kind smile.

"Thank you Saki-San, you always know how to make me smile." Ino exclaimed before she turned and basically swooned out of the room.

Sakura sighed in exasperation, "not like I didn't do anything either ya know." She joked to herself.

"It's okay, she's just young and in love." Saki told her. "Have you anyone special in your life Sakura-San?" She asked with a kind smile, Sakura didn't know why but she felt she could trust Saki.

"Well...yes, this person...fell down a dark path for a long time, I honestly didn't think he would ever come back...but I felt like I had to believe that he would you know? My best friend promised me years ago that he would bring him back no matter what, and even when I began to lose hope...he managed to do it. They both almost died but I managed to help them as best as I could, he apologised for everything he did. He left though for a while, told me he'd be back, he came back again to help the village when the moon was falling but quickly went again..." Sakura explained sadly, lost in her own thoughts of Sasuke, she fell quiet until a hand covered her own.

"It sounds to me like he will come back; he must care for you if he promised to come back to you. Despite falling into the dark path, he didn't stay there forever; he just needed some help to see the better path." Saki told her reassuringly.

"Do you think it's worth it? Waiting all these years?" Sakura whispered, barely loud enough to hear.

"Probably not, but you know...love is unconditional, you've loved him even after all this time and never gave up on him. I think waiting a little while longer for him to come back to you wouldn't be so bad. My husband used to be a drunk when I first met him, I used to work in a pub you see and nobody liked him; he was a bit of a delinquent but when he was sober in the morning, I saw the real him that he tried so desperately to hide under all that booze. He had some problems when he was a child and he was scared to face the world alone without help, but every time when he sobered up in the morning, I would speak to him. Day by day, he drank less and less, he would still come into the pub and order non-alcoholic drinks and when he hadn't touched one bit of alcohol in a full year, he came to me and thanked me. I asked him what he was thanking me for and do you know what he said?" Saki asked Sakura with a fond smile.

"No." Sakura answered, shaking her head in shock.

"He said that I was the one that helped him through his dark times, he was able to cope just by speaking to me and he asked me out on a date." Saki chuckled happily. "I said yes, of course and the village was shocked at how he turned his life around, got himself a job in a restaurant and worked hard every day to get us a house and when I announced that I was pregnant, he cried for a few hours. Ran straight to work to ask for more work hours, and we've been married 48 years." Saki finished proudly.

"That's amazing, where is he now?" Sakura asked her with a grateful smile.

"He's gone to get me some lunch; he said only the finest for me; no hospital food although, I honestly don't mind the food here." Saki told her with a small chuckle.

"Thank you so much Saki-San, I needed that. I hope you get out of here soon." Sakura told her cheerfully, waving to her before moving on to her next patient. She never noticed Sasuke's eyes watching her, Saki did though and she waved at him knowingly as Sasuke nodded and disappeared quickly.

Sasuke had came back that morning, he wanted to go to the hospital first to check up on Sakura before going to the Hokage tower to report all the things he had seen to Kakashi. He tried to put everything he had heard to the back of his mind, no doubt to brood over later as he knocked on Kakashi's door.

"Come in." Kakashi's voice could be heard through the door, Kakashi's eyes lit up in shock as Sasuke entered. "Sasuke, you're back?" He asked in surprise.

"Yeah, I'll be back for a few weeks before I head out again. I thought I should let you know that I found a few of Orochimaru's hideouts that were inhabited by bands of rogue ninja." Sasuke informed him before handing over a map he had marked with each hideout and what chakra natures the rogue ninja had.

"Thank you, I shall get a few teams on it. Have you been to see Sakura or Naruto yet?" Kakashi asked him curiously.

"I've seen Sakura at the hospital but I'll talk to her later, I'm just on my way to Naruto's why?" Sasuke asked.

"Well Konohamaru came to me and asked about Naruto's whereabouts but no one has seen him, Konohamaru knocked on Naruto's door and he said he didn't sense Naruto's chakra there and he checked all the places Naruto usually visits." Kakashi told Sasuke seriously, not wanting to worry either of them pre-emptively but wanting to make sure his former student was safe.

Sasuke's expression darkened, he was worried. "Understood, I'll be going then." Kakashi waved as Sasuke disappeared and went as quick as he could to Naruto's apartment.

He knocked on the door but no one answered, Sasuke lifted the frog ornament and found Naruto's spare key under it before letting himself in, he would often visit Naruto's place when he was still on his road to redemption and Naruto kept a spare key for him in case he was out on missions.

"Naruto?" Sasuke called out. As he was taking off his shoes he noticed that Naruto's were still there, concerned, he walked into the living room and felt alarm go through him as he noticed signs of a struggle; Naruto's dropped Kunai and broken plates. Immediately on guard, Sasuke activated his Sharingan and looked around to make sure there was no lingering chakra signatures. Whoever it was was careful enough not to use any ninjutsu when taking Naruto but Naruto wasn't as weak as he used to be and would easily be able to fight off his attackers so how did they get him?

Sasuke mulled this over as he quickly went to the hospital; Sakura nearly dropped her notepad in shock when she saw him.

"Sasuke? What are you doing here?" Sakura asked him shyly.

"Sakura, I need to speak to you in private." Sasuke told her, trying to not show his concern.

Sakura pulled Sasuke by the arm into her office and closed the door behind him.

"What is it?" She asked worriedly; even though he was very good at hiding his emotions, she could always tell when something was wrong.

"Naruto is gone." Sasuke told her bluntly.

"What do you mean 'he's gone'?" He's probably just out training with Konohamaru; he came and asked me where he could find him earlier." Sakura told him anxiously.

"I mean he's gone if the broken plates and signs of a struggle are anything to go by." Sasuke explained as patiently as he could.

Sakura gasped. "Who could have taken him? Naruto's strong so there's no way he could have just been taken without someone noticing." She said with a shocked look.

"I think he may have been drugged, he dropped a kunai on the ground and it looked like he might have knocked into the couch when he fell, it's been moved a fraction of an inch, I only noticed because I used my Sharingan to see if there was any lingering chakra and this person was careful enough not to use any." Sasuke explained. "I'm going to go tell Kakashi about Naruto, stay here and finish your shift and then get your ninja gear ready." He added as he was trying to be kinder to her, still feeling guilty for everything he did, after hearing Sakura's whispered "is it worth it?" earlier, he was still affected by her words.

"Okay, I should be finished in an hour let Kakashi-Sama know I want to go on this mission." Sakura told him, clenching her fist in front of her with a smile.

"I'm sure he'd expect nothing less." Sasuke told her, his lips quirking up at the corners for a few seconds before turning and rushing towards the Hokage tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well I'mma take a break for dinner now and stuffs and shall hopefully get working on the next chapter soon! Enjoy :3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done :3 Enjoy ^_^

Kakashi heard the knock at the door and sighed tiredly as he told them to come in; his door would be knocked at least 100 times a day. He smiled when he saw Sasuke come in, expecting Naruto to be following behind, his smile fell slightly when he noticed Naruto's absence.

"You couldn't find him?"Kakashi asked worriedly.

"Naruto's been taken, I think he may have been drugged, there's signs of a struggle and I think he's been missing for a while." Sasuke informed Kakashi with a serious expression.

"What makes you say he was drugged?" Kakashi asked, his face darkening.

"Naruto wouldn't have went quietly, there's a kunai on the ground where I think he must have fallen, some plates are smashed, some of the furniture has moved slightly as well." Sasuke reported. "Sakura's going to finish her shift at the hospital and then she said she'll go get her ninja gear because she wants to go save him as well." He added.

"As I expected, well I'm going to go to Naruto's and take a look for myself, then I shall call in Lee and Sai to accompany you. That is, if you don't mind the company." Kakashi asked him, genuinely wondering if Sasuke would want to work as part of a team.

"...Sure, I'll try and work with them." Sasuke replied uncertainly, he only really spoke to Kakashi, Naruto and Sakura these days but a part of him wanted to try and get to know the others more, but another part of him would have preferred to do it all on his own.

"Thanks Sasuke, just try and talk to them, or at least answer when they speak to you and it should be fine. Work well as a team and have their backs. I have no doubt in my mind that they would cover yours, I'll try and send you whatever information I can about Naruto's whereabouts, I'm going to send messages to the other Kages as well to see if they can dig up any information." Kakashi told him, knowing that his former student was feeling insecure despite his usually stoic demeanour.

"Thank you Kakashi." Sasuke said so quietly, he almost missed it before Sasuke disappeared. Kakashi wrote messages onto 4 scrolls before sealing them and stood up, he walked out of his office to head to Naruto's but he was stopped in his tracks by Shizune.

"Where do you think you're going Kakashi-Sama, you still have duties to attend to." Shizune told him with a fond smile, used to Tsunade's frequent attempted escapes; her smile quickly fell when she noticed the serious look in his eyes.

"No one can know yet Shizune but Naruto is missing." Kakashi explained to her quietly, looking around so no one could hear.

"Naruto-Kun is missing?" Shizune whispered worriedly.

"Yeah, I'm on my way to his apartment to see it for myself, I need you to bring these to the messenger tower and send them to each of the Kages, I need all the information I can get on how this person took Naruto without alerting anyone." Kakashi told her, she nodded solemnly before he was gone in a puff of smoke.

Kakashi rushed towards Naruto's apartment, making sure he wasn't seen, which would be hard for a Hokage in his own village but he managed to pull it off. He walked into Naruto's living room, surveying everything he could with an anxious glance, he walked back outside and bit his thumb and summoned all 8 of his ninja dogs.

"Kakashi! Long time no see." Pakkun told him cheerfully.

"I wish it was under better circumstances Pakkun but Naruto is missing, I need you guys to track his scent and the scent of his attacker. Sasuke and I have been in his apartment so hopefully you'll not follow those by mistake." Kakashi told them worriedly.

"We still remember your scents so we'll be able to tell them apart." Pakkun said with confidence. "Let's go guys; we need to track Naruto and an unknown person's scent." Pakkun told the others, they all yelped and walked into Naruto's apartment, noses close to the ground and smelling everything they could.

Bull's low bark could be heard at one corner of the room, the rest of the dogs went over to him to check out what he smelt.

"What is it Pakkun?" Kakashi asked curiously.

"We have a trail for Naruto...and we also have a trail for the assailant, there's also a medical smell in here." Pakkun paused to sniff the air some more. "Kind of like a tranquiliser but not quite as strong." He explained, deep in thought.

"Good job! Do you want head off with the team on your own Pakkun? Or would some of you guys want to go?" He asked them, feeling a little more assured now that the dogs had picked up a trail.

"Well I think Bull wants to come," Pakkun replied. Bull gave an affirmative bark and Shiba perked up as well. "That means Shiba's in too, the rest of the guys can go on home though." Pakkun added with a smile and waved at the other dogs as they disappeared in puffs of smoke.

"Right, let's go to the Hokage tower before they start questioning my absence." Kakashi said with a sigh, he loved the job but he missed the freedom of being able to just walk around the village reading his book.

They stealthily ran through the village and managed to get to the Hokage tower unnoticed, Shizune was already back at her post, rushing to speak to Kakashi as he entered his office.

"Kakashi-Sama, I've sent the messenger birds out, no one but you, Sasuke and Sakura know that Naruto is missing." Shizune informed him with anxious eyes.

"Okay, I need you to call Sakura, Sasuke, Lee and Sai here so they can be briefed." Kakashi told her quickly.

"Yes, right away." Shizune said before leaving the room as fast as she could.

"Come in." Kakashi said at another knock at the door. "Oh Konohamaru-Kun and Hanabi-Sama, what can I do for you?" Kakashi asked as he took in their worried expressions.

"Naruto-Nii-Chan's missing isn't he?" Konohamaru asked worriedly.

"What makes you say that?" Kakashi asked calmly, trying to keep his face stoic so he wouldn't worry them.

"Even if he was sleeping at home, he'd be awake by now. He doesn't normally leave the village unless he has a mission, he's not at any of the usual places he visits, no one has seen him all day and he would have met with me by now to train-kore." Konohamaru exclaimed, knowing full well that they would try and stop the village from going into a panic if they found out Naruto was missing.

Kakashi took in Konohamaru's hurt look and Hanabi's worried face and he sighed sadly. "Okay, Naruto has gone missing. BUT-" He said loudly before either of them could interrupt. "We're setting up a team now to go in pursuit, Pakkun here..." Kakashi added, gesturing to the dog. "And his team have picked up his scent, once the team arrives; they are heading straight out to retrieve Naruto. I promise you, we will bring him back home safe. However, that does not mean that you can sneak out and try and rescue him yourselves, you know Naruto will be pretty upset if you guys got hurt trying to save him. Especially with Hanabi's disappearance which happened just over a month ago." Kakashi told them with a pointed look.

"But Kakashi-Sama, Onee-Sama doesn't know he's missing, what if she finds out when she's on her mission." Hanabi told him anxiously.

"Hinata-Sama..." Kakashi thought over it; if he didn't send someone to inform Hinata and Naruto wasn't back by the time she had returned from her mission, she would be extremely upset. On the other hand, if he sent a message to her now, she could seriously hurt herself on her mission...And as much as he didn't like it; he felt that it was only right that she should know. "I'll send a messenger out to let her and her team know, that way if they notice anything related to Naruto on this mission, they'll be able to do something." Kakashi reassured Hanabi, closing his eyes in a polite smile.

"You promise that Naruto-Nii-Chan will be brought back soon and I will promise not to go off on my own to rescue him myself." Konohamaru told Kakashi with a determined look, but Kakashi could tell he was just scared.

"I promise you, I also promise that if you do go after Naruto without my express permission, I'll give you the worst missions for the next year. You remember the cat? I will make sure that you are the one that has to find her every week. Understood?" Kakashi said, doing his best impression of Yamato when he would intimidate Naruto.

Konohamaru gulped and nodded his head vigorously. "Please don't make me go on the cat missions; she hates me, last time the scratches were on my face for two weeks." He groaned, feeling better that Naruto would be in safe hands, he cheerfully waved at Kakashi before leaving with Hanabi following behind.

Kakashi sighed fondly, Konohamaru reminded him so much of Naruto; if it wasn't for the fact they didn't look alike, you wouldn't even know they weren't actually brothers.

"Kakashi do you think one of us should go to Hinata-Sama and deliver the message to her and her team? I understand that one of her teammates has a Ninja dog as well. Two of us could go with one team while the other has two as well?" Pakkun suggested.

"Hmmm, that doesn't sound like a bad idea, I need you to stay with Sakura's group as you can talk, Shiba could go with the message attached to his collar, I don't think Akamaru would have any trouble detecting Naruto's scent either." Kakashi said, deep in thought. He pulled out a scroll and began writing a detailed message, one for Shikamaru to explain the situation and another for Hinata to let her know they were doing everything they could. He then carefully sealed both scrolls before tying them to Shiba's collar, "they shouldn't be too far away as the journey takes two days and they only left this morning." Kakashi added.

He then pulled out personal belongings from both Shikamaru and Hinata that he had in a filing cabinet for events such as this, "smell these and try and find them as best as you can." Kakashi told Shiba who took a deep whiff of both items before giving an affirmative bark and disappeared from the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to end it here guys, I just had this idea that Kakashi has a filing cabinet filled with items from different ninjas in the village so he can send his tracking dogs after them. He's such a caring Hokage and I just love him so damn much.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the next chapter :3 Oh and can I just apologise in advance for the terrible rhyming skills I have for Bee, in my defence he's not supposed to be good at it but still it's pretty bad and I'm sorry.

"Naruto!" Naruto could hear someone calling to him in the distance but was too tired to find out. "Naruto! Wake up right now or I swear I will take control of your body for good." Kurama shouted angrily.

When Naruto opened his eyes, he found himself standing in front of Kurama and looked around in confusion.

"Why am I here? What's going on?" He asked tiredly, perplexed by the situation.

"You idiot! You've been kidnapped, I need you to wake up, not just in here." Kurama grumbled, trying to hide his concern behind his tough exterior.

"Sorry Kurama, I don't think I can, every time I try something blocks me." Naruto told him with a soft smile, he was a little worried about what was happening to him but he was glad he had Kurama.

"I don't think I can do anything either kid, I could try and contact Gyuki and get him to let Bee know something's up?" Kurama suggested.

Naruto nodded thoughtfully, "sounds good, I can't go with you though; they seem to be using something that stops my chakra, it's not stopping yours so at least that's something-ttebayo." Naruto replied, feeling anxious as he was trying hard to wake up and it wasn't working.

Kurama looked Naruto over worriedly before nodding; he crossed his legs in a meditative trance as he concentrated on contacting Gyuki.

"B, could you please not rap when I'm trying to sleep." Gyuki told Killer Bee off exasperatedly.

"Sorry that you can't hack my style but if you need some sleep I can stop for a while." Bee rapped with a smirk.

"Honestly..."Gyuki grumbled before he noticed Kurama. "B, Kurama's trying to contact us." He told Bee quickly. Kurama appeared before them with a serious expression, although that was the expression he usually showed to anyone other than Naruto.

"Naruto's in trouble! He's been kidnapped and he can't wake up, something's stopping his chakra so that's why he's not here as well." Kurama told them urgently; worried that whatever they were doing to Naruto could start to affect him as well.

Bee's face turned serious as he thought over what could have happened to his friend.

"How did he get kidnapped?" Gyuki asked, knowing Kurama would have been able to witness everything.

"Well he went home and someone drugged him I think, Naruto fell asleep too easily. It couldn't have been a bash to the head as it would have healed by now due to my presence." Kurama informed them.

"Well someone's gonna have to go back to school as I'm gonna teach them a lesson for being fool! (Bakayeroo Konoyeroo)." Bee said with a determined expression, he was gonna make sure no one would dare hurt Naruto again as he was very protective of his friend.

Gyuki sighed but let it go, "what would you like us to do? Shall we notify the Raikage and see if he can get a message to the leaf?" He asked worriedly.

"Yes do that, hopefully the leaf have already noticed his disappearance, there is a group of shinobi from the leaf on their way to the Cloud for a mission anyway, and they should be there by tomorrow." Kurama informed them. "I'm going to get back and see if Naruto can wake up yet." Kurama added, not wanting to say he was worried about leaving Naruto alone out loud.

Naruto was walking around Kurama, waiting for him to open his eyes so he could help him try and find a way to properly wake up.

"Naruto...what are you doing?" Kurama asked as he noticed Naruto walking around him.

"Sorry Kurama." Naruto replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "I got a bit bored waiting for you to come back, I've tried everything I can to wake up but nothing's working-ttebayo." Naruto explained, trying to concentrate on pushing himself back up to the surface but not fully being able to reach it.

"Well I've told Gyuki and Bee that you've been taken so they're going to go to the Raikage and get help." Kurama told him reassuringly.

"Thank you Kurama." Naruto told him with grateful smile. Naruto stopped dead when a thought struck him, 'Hinata's on her way to the Cloud village right now, she's gonna be so worried when she finds out dattebayo.' Naruto knew Hinata was a worrier, especially when it came to those closest to her. He hoped that she would be okay when she found out, even though he should be more worried about his own predicament right now and how he was going to get out of it, he couldn't help but worry about her.

"She'll be fine idiot. Just try and concentrate on waking up, Hinata is very strong willed and I've no doubt that despite her worrying, she'll be preparing to rescue you and probably complete her mission at the same time." Kurama told him with a knowing look.

"I know she'll be okay, she's an amazing shinobi...and I swear I'm trying to wake up dattebayo! It's like every time I'm close something pushes me back, I've never had something like that happen before." Naruto replied in frustration, he gave Kurama a guilty look but he interrupted before Naruto could apologise.

"I'm going to try and take over, just to see if I can open your eyes for you." Kurama told him.

Naruto nodded, he had the utmost faith in Kurama, knowing he wouldn't permanently take over after everything they'd been through.

Kurama pushed himself towards the surface, slowly opening Naruto's eyes into slits so no one would notice. Moving Naruto's head as slowly as possible, he tried to gage where he was, he was lying down in what seemed to be a cave, his assailant was in a sleeping bag and had his back turned to him so he couldn't identify him. He noticed that Naruto's body had been tied with chakra wire, a seal had been placed on his chest to suppress Naruto's chakra and with a quiet growl he noticed that the wire had been digging into Naruto's skin, causing it to bleed in some places.

He experimented with trying to move different parts of his body but he quickly realised that due to the chakra suppressing wire, Naruto's head was the only thing he could move without hurting Naruto. He noticed a map that was lying on the ground which was lit up slightly by the dying embers of the campfire; he could barely make out the cloud village on the map but there was a circle drawn close to the cloud village. Kurama noticed the assailant beginning to turn and quickly closed his eyes when he saw the mask, he wouldn't be able to tell who the person was anyway and he'd rather not let them know he could take over just in case.

"What did you see-ttebayo?" Naruto asked Kurama quickly when he came back.

"Not much, we're in a cave, the attacker was asleep but he's not now, there was a map that is circled near the cloud village so at least we can let Gyuki and Bee know. Oh and your entire body is covered in chakra wire and if that wasn't enough, they added a seal on your chest to suppress your chakra even more. Which isn't too surprising since you were the hero of the war, and you defeated Toneri when he was trying to bring down the moon. They're definitely intimidated by you, I just don't know why they want you, and there was nothing I could see which would explain their motives. The wires and seal managed to suppress your chakra but not mine so maybe they thought it would suppress me too?" Kurama explained, lost in thought.

"Well even though I'm in a bit of trouble right now, I'm just glad they can't hurt you and I know everyone will help me." Naruto said, sighing with relief. Kurama gave Naruto a fond look, no longer surprised by Naruto's kindness.

"I'm going to let Bee and Gyuki know, I'll be back soon." Kurama informed Naruto.

"We'll I'm still pretty tired and since I'm not going anywhere right now, I'm gonna go back to sleep." Naruto replied, lying down beside Kurama and allowing himself to relax, thinking about Hinata before he went to sleep.

Hinata pulled out a bento with some food she was going to prepare for dinner. They had been running the entire day with a few short breaks in between but Shikamaru had deemed this place safe enough to stay for the night. Pulling out her sleeping bag, she noticed Naruto's jacket, she folded it up and set it at the top to use as a pillow, before getting up to go to their campfire.

"I'm about to start cooking, does anyone want me to add some of your food to the fire?" Hinata asked politely as she added some rice and water into a pot.

"No thanks Hinata, I'm not hungry right now. I have food for Akamaru as well so he's okay." Kiba replied as he reached into his pack and pulled out a bowl and some food for Akamaru who yelped happily.

"I'd like to add some rice to the pot if you don't mind Hinata." Shino told her as he pulled out his own bento, a bug flew out of his pack and landed on his neck, crawling to join the others that were hidden in his coat.

"Me too," Shikamaru called out, adding his own rice to the pot.

"No problem, I'll just add more water for the rice. Are you sure you don't want anything Kiba-Kun?" Hinata asked him worriedly.

"I'm sure; mom made me some sandwiches which need to be eaten tonight anyway." Kiba told her, giving his teammate a fond smile.

After they finished their meal, Hinata was exhausted, she bid everyone goodnight before heading towards her sleeping bag and settled herself into her bed, she relaxed onto Naruto's jacket, feeling comforted by the scent; she missed him already but she knew that he'd be waiting for her when she came back from her mission. Comforted by this, she fell into an easy sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm exhausted and I have to get up early do some last minute Christmas shopping :P Such is life in the game of procrastination Dx Hope you enjoyed this, hopefully if it's not finished by Christmas day, it'll be finished by Boxing Day :3 Next Chapter Hinata finds out! :)


	6. Chapter 6

"What is it Akamaru?" Kiba asked as Akamaru growled quietly. Kiba headed towards Hinata with Akamaru in tow, standing in front of her protectively as she was still asleep. Shino's bugs flew out of his coat and headed towards the forest; searching for any intruders.

Shiba came running through a bush and headed towards them as quickly as possible.

"It's one of Kakashi-Sama's ninja dogs." Shikamaru told them before they could attack.

Shiba ran towards Shikamaru and waited until he removed the two scrolls that were attached to his neck. Shikamaru undid the seal on the one that was addressed to him and he let out a small gasp as he read the scroll with shocked eyes.

"What is it Shikamaru?" Shino asked quietly.

Shikamaru glanced at Hinata's sleeping form worriedly, noticing the orange jacket she was sleeping on. He gestured for the others to move away slightly so he could talk to them quietly without Hinata overhearing.

"Naruto's missing; they think he's been kidnapped." Shikamaru told them seriously.

"What? How?" Kiba exclaimed loudly, Shikamaru shot him an annoyed look as they glanced over to Hinata cautiously.

"They think he was drugged, one of Kakashi-Sama's dogs told him that there was a medical scent typical of a tranquiliser but not quite as strong. They can't be sure but they think he may have been kidnapped during the night, which means he was already gone by the time we headed out for our mission." Shikamaru informed them, frowning as he thought over the information.

"Seriously? Why didn't anyone notice? No offence to Naruto-Kun but he can be pretty loud when he's fighting someone; someone was bound to notice." Kiba said angrily as he was worried about his friend.

"Well apparently this person didn't use any ninjutsu, there's no traces of chakra from the attacker or Naruto which means they must have got him by surprise, and they may have drugged him before he could really do anything." Shikamaru replied.

"What are we going to do about Hinata? This would crush her, especially since they were on a date last night." Kiba asked, anxiously looking over to his teammate.

"...I'm not sure we should tell her, at least not ye-" Shikamaru said before Shiba let out an angry growl and shook his head.

Akamaru gave Kiba a pointed look. "Akamaru thinks that..." Kiba began, focusing on the name that was printed on Shiba's outfit. "Shiba's trying to say we should tell her." Kiba told Shikamaru.

"Did Kakashi-Sama say that we had to tell her?" Shikamaru asked Shiba, hoping yes or no answers would help him communicate with the dog.

Shiba nodded, reaching up to take Hinata's scroll from Shikamaru's hands and walking over to Hinata's sleeping form. He dropped the scroll in front of her and barked loudly so she would wake up, she woke up with a start and stared at the dog groggily for a few seconds before sitting up quickly.

"W-What is going on?" She asked tiredly.

"It's one of Kakashi-Sama's ninja dogs; he was bringing you a scroll that Kakashi-Sama sent." Shikamaru told her solemnly, he wasn't sure what he should do; torn between telling her and waiting until she read her own scroll.

Hinata looked at everyone's faces and knew immediately that something was wrong, she looked down and picked up the scroll anxiously, unsealing it as quick as she could. She gasped and covered her mouth as she took in the words, reading and re-reading the words again as she tried to accept the truth of them.

'Stop it! He's going to be fine.' Hinata told herself inwardly as she felt the tears begin to prick at her eyes.

'You're a lot stronger than you think Hinata!'

'If it were me Naruto-Kun wouldn't allow himself to get upset, he'd stand up and fight, he would do whatever he could to try and save me. So that's what I'm going to do and I won't allow myself to get upset.' Hinata thought to herself with a determined look.

Standing up, Hinata turned to her teammates with her head held high. "Okay, so what do we need to do?" Hinata asked Shikamaru, causing him to smile in relief.

"Well, we need to see if Naruto's scent is anywhere near here. Then if it is we'll have to report to the Raikage and get any information we can, it would be foolish to just rush in to an ambush." Shikamaru explained to her.

"Akamaru, can you smell Naruto-Kun anywhere?" Kiba asked.

"If you need any help Akamaru, I have Naruto-Kun's jacket." Hinata suggested, picking up the jacket and reaching over to the dogs so they could smell it.

Both Akamaru and Shiba barked and turned to run in the direction they were supposed to be headed on their mission. Shino also sent out some tracker bugs to see if they could find him, he would never outwardly admit it but he was worried about Naruto's safety. They quickly packed up their things and followed the dogs as fast as they could.

"Come in." Kakashi called, looking grave as Sai, Lee, Sasuke and Sakura entered the room.

"Some of you already know this but Naruto has been kidnapped." Kakashi announced when the door closed.

"What?!" Lee exclaimed in shock.

"Where do we go?" Sai asked with a determined look.

"Well we're not sure yet but Pakkun and Bull here can track him. All you have to do is follow them and try and retrieve Naruto as quick and as safely as possible, Shikamaru and team 8 are already out on a mission with the Cloud but Shiba has gone out after them with the details and I have requested that they also track Naruto. Now I'm sure I don't have to tell you this but the less people that know about this, the better; we can't have the village fall into a panic." Kakashi explained seriously.

"When do we leave Kakashi-Sama?" Sakura asked him, feeling anxious to get going and save her best friend.

"As soon as possible, and be careful." Kakashi told them.

"Understood, we'll be leaving now." Sasuke replied.

"Let's go Bull, see you later Kakashi." Pakkun said as they followed the group out of the room. "Try and stay close; when we follow a scent that's far away we need to keep chasing it, just in case we lose it with the wind or something like that so we'll be running fast." He added for the groups benefit.

"Don't worry Pakkun, we shall be right behind you and we shall save our friend with the power of youth!" Lee exclaimed, giving a thumbs up.

Sai painted 4 tigers for he and his teammates to ride on. "Lead the way." Sai told Pakkun as he mounted his tiger.

Sasuke hesitated, preferring to run on foot than on an illustrated tiger but one pleading look from Sakura convinced him to get on the tiger. He knew she wanted him to try and make more of an effort to talk to people but sometimes it was hard for him, he assumed his life was going to be one of solitude, revenge and misery before he became a part of Team 7 and a lot of things changed over the years; some of it good, a lot of it not so good.

Pakkun and Bull nodded, making sure that everyone was following closely as they ran at a fast pace, following the scent as best as they could.

"Naruto wake up." Kurama said quietly.

"I thought we already established that I couldn't-ttebayo." Naruto said sleepily.

"Just get up already. Gyuki and Bee have informed the Raikage. It just so happens that the Raikage already knew because Kakashi sent a message to the Kages, Bee's hopeful that you'll be rescued before the kidnapper reaches his destination." Kurama said, amused at Naruto's groggy look.

"I wish I could wake up." Naruto said quietly. He was in no way giving up but he couldn't help but feel useless in this situation, "I just want to find out what they want with me dattebayo." He added irritably.

"It is frustrating." Kurama agreed, "Would you like me to take a look?" He asked, trying to make Naruto feel a bit better about the situation.

"Yeah, be careful though; I don't want them to see your eyes and then try to do something else to seal you too." Naruto told him with a concerned look.

Kurama ignored the fond feeling he had and pushed himself up to the surface. He kept his eyes closed, listening to his surroundings; he could feel that he was on the man's shoulder as he was running. He lifted his head slightly and carefully opened his eyes; looking around he could see a far away forest, the kidnapper was running on a road and seemed to be alone, Kurama closed his eyes pulled himself back to Naruto.

"See anything interesting?" Naruto asked curiously.

"The kidnapper is running on a road which means we're getting close to a village." Kurama told him.

"Hmmm, I don't like this Kurama, you don't think they'd try and take you do you?" Naruto asked worriedly.

"I can't be sure but I won't be going without a damn good fight." Kurama reassured him with a smirk.

"Yosh! I'm going to try harder to wake up-ttebayo. I can't let you do all the work." Naruto told him, standing up and concentrating as hard as he could.

Kurama just watched him with an amused look, used to Naruto's frequent bursts of courage. "Well then, don't give up." Kurama told him, Naruto nodded with a determined look. He was going to wake up, if it was the last thing he did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's that chapter, just a few chapter left I hope, I have an idea of what I want and I just need to get there and hopefully you'll enjoy it :3 Thank you for reading and Merry Christmas ^=_=^


	7. Chapter 7

"How is it going Naruto?" Kurama asked as Naruto had been quiet for 15 minutes.

"Better than what it was but I still can't reach it...I'm so close-ttebayo." Naruto told him, he was getting a little frustrated now.

"I'm sure you'll be able to do it." Kurama encouraged. "If you're closer than what you were that means it's working."

"Mmm, you may be right." Naruto said before an idea struck him and he turned to Kurama quickly, "what kind of seal were they using dattebayo?" He asked excitedly.

"As far as I could tell it was a standard chakra seal, why?" Kurama answered slowly.

Naruto smiled confidently, sat down and crossed his legs. Kurama looked at him with a smirk as he realised what Naruto was thinking, "I hope this works." Naruto said before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath.

After 20 slow minutes that Kurama never thought would end, Naruto opened his eyes and smiled triumphantly. "My Sennin Mode works!" Naruto cheered, doing a little happy dance. "Wish me luck Kurama." Naruto said happily.

"Good luck Naruto, and be careful." Kurama said, admiring the young man he'd watched grow up.

Naruto concentrated hard, focusing his nature chakra in order to push him to the surface, when he finally made it he opened his eyes slowly. He was in a room...and he wasn't alone.

"So you managed to wake up? Tch...Doesn't matter, you can't move anyway; I've made sure of that." A man with a mask, not unlike Kakashi's, said.

"What do you want with me?!" Naruto asked irritably.

"You'll see soon." The man answered, he punched Naruto across the face; splitting his lip. "Now sit there quietly and shut up!" He said and walked out of the room.

Naruto spat the blood out of his mouth and tried to struggle against the wires, even with his Sennin mode, he couldn't break free and the chakra wires dug into his skin painfully, causing more blood to stain his white t-shirt and orange pyjama bottoms.

Naruto could feel Kurama's anger coming from deep within him but he didn't want to risk going back in case his kidnapper came back. He looked up when his kidnapper entered the room but he wasn't alone as four other men entered the room.

"What do you want from me? I want to know why you felt the need to take me dattebayo!" Naruto asked them all with an angry look, trying to struggle through the chakra wire and gritting his teeth in pain.

The red haired ninja smirked and stepped forward. "Well it's simple; we need your chakra, we've researched you Uzumaki Naruto. As an Uzumaki, you have a lot of chakra and since you have the Kyubi chakra; you would have immensely more."

Naruto looked at them in frustration, "why do you need MY chakra?" He asked.

"Well we have this machine that operates on chakra, one of us needs to be donating our chakra while someone else operates the machine but it takes so much chakra at a dangerous level. Normally we would take turns but you see...we are preparing for an attack and if we are overwhelmed, we all need to be at our best to defend ourselves. So...you will be in the machine while we are free to use it and attack or defend ourselves as well." The red haired man explained so calmly it was like he was discussing the weather.

Naruto glared, he wanted to talk to Kurama but he was sure that he couldn't do that if they were still here. "What happens when your attack is over? Do you let me go?" Naruto asked curiously, playing along.

A dark haired ninja shook his head before speaking. "This machine we are using suppresses a certain type of chakra of a shinobi when they are near it; we fully intend to use it at maximum power. It is also a great weapon, capable of blowing up anything within a ten mile radius, and as my friend here has said; the machine absorbs chakra at a dangerous level. We don't think you will survive what we have planned; Uzumaki and Kyubi chakra may be good but it's not that good." He said without remorse.

"You won't get away with this-ttebayo!" Naruto growled angrily, Kurama's fury was burning inside him.

"Of course we will. Despite the fact you won the war, you're still a Jinchuriki and as far as we know, Jinchuriki are generally shunned by their own villages and when they go missing; nobody tends to care." The man with the mask said with confidence.

Naruto thought over those words, he decided to play dumb and not let them know that people were coming to rescue him. He let a defeated expression play on his face and he looked down, knowing that the men would think they had broken him.

When they walked out of the room, Naruto closed his eyes and appeared in front of Kurama.

"Are you okay Kurama?" Naruto asked him worriedly.

"Am I okay? Naruto you are in serious trouble here if the rescue teams don't get here soon." Kurama said angrily.

"I know but at least they don't know there are rescue teams coming so they're not in any rush; that'll buy them some time." Naruto said, thinking over everything they had told him.

"I'm going to speak with Gyuki and Bee and let them know everything that's happened, go back up to the surface just in case and come back if something happens while I'm away." Kurama replied with a serious face.

"Okay, see you soon." Naruto told him. Naruto pushed himself to the surface and found that he was still alone in the room, he slumped down in his bonds and hissed as it irritated some of the wounds which were still bleeding. The only reason he hadn't felt weak from blood loss was because of Kurama's presence; he had always been a fast healer and his skin was trying to repair itself but the wire kept cutting into him every time he moved.

He sighed as his mind travelled to thoughts of Hinata; they had been dating for over a month but had become extremely close, especially after everything that happened with Toneri. He had noticed that he had been having very strong feelings for her for a week now, even stronger than what he had felt all those weeks ago and he wasn't quite sure what it was. Three words had been playing around his mind and every time they met up; he would have an overwhelming urge to say them to her but he was worried he'd scare her off, even though she had said something similar to him when she almost died trying to save him from Pein.

He hoped that his friends would rescue him in time; he didn't want to die before he told her. He shook his head irritably, he couldn't think like that and he just had to play along with whatever his captors wanted for now.

"Where are we now Shikamaru? Akamaru seems to think we're pretty close." Kiba asked as they ran after the two dogs, which were showing signs of slowing down.

"We seem to be close to the Kaminari village, I don't want to get too close though. We still need to report to the Raikage-Sama before we make an attempt on the village for our mission." Shikamaru explained cautiously.

"Do you think they might have taken Naruto-Kun there?" Hinata asked worriedly.

"It's possible, Shino send a few of your insects to see if he's there. Try not to send too many though; we don't want to be detected." Shikamaru said as he turned to Shino. Shino nodded in response and sent 5 insects out to follow Naruto's trail, after 5 minutes the bugs flew back and climbed back into Shino's coat.

"Naruto is in there. There is also a group of 10 rogue shinobi, they seem to be working on some machinery and my insects weren't detected so they must not have a sensory type." Shino reported as he was able to communicate with his bugs.

"Is Naruto-Kun okay?" Hinata asked anxiously.

"He seems to be, they could only get a quick glance as they were trying to avoid detection; one of the ninjas were walking towards the room they're keeping him in." Shino told her, trying not to worry her.

"Okay, let's get to the Cloud as quick as possible. The sooner we get there the sooner we can retrieve Naruto." Shikamaru said quickly. Everyone nodded and headed towards the Cloud village, taking extra care to not be detected as they passed the Kaminari village.

As they entered the Cloud village they were greeted almost immediately by Omoi and Karui. "Come with us quickly, you need to speak with the Raikage-Sama urgently. Bee-Sama has new information on the 'situation.'" Karui said to them before leading the team as quick as they could to the Raikage tower.

Hinata followed quickly, trying desperately not to think of the worst. When they entered the Raikage's office, Bee was worriedly telling his brother something; it must have been serious since it didn't sound like he was rapping.

"Raikage-Sama, the shinobi from the leaf are here." Omoi informed A.

"Raikage-Sama, we are here to help you with the Kaminari village, however, as Naruto is missing; the mission has altered slightly." Shikamaru began.

"Kakashi has informed me about Naruto; Bee here has been in contact with Kurama and has shared the information with me." A replied seriously.

"Well I would like to report that our ninja dogs have traced Naruto's scent to the Kaminari village, I thought it would be best to report to you first before we went to investigate." Shikamaru informed him.

"You were wise; we need to figure out a strategy. However, they are using a machine which affects our chakra, I was informed that it can also cause an explosion within a 10 mile radius but I'm not sure what else it can do. They are intending to destroy this village and as Raikage, I cannot allow it. Bee informed me that they took Naruto for his chakra and are unaware of your rescue operation as they don't believe that the village would care for its Jinchuriki...I must inform you that they intend to use Naruto to power the machine, it needs chakra to work but it absorbs a lot of chakra, they would have been able to use it effectively if they take turns however, due to their attack, they want to be fully capable of fighting individually...I also have to tell you that they don't expect him to survive the attack, they intend to use all his chakra." The Raikage explained, he was angry at the situation, he would never admit it but he liked the kid.

Hinata felt her heart drop, she looked down and clenched her fist. She refused to get upset, she was a lot stronger than she used to be and she was going to prove it, she swallowed the lump in her throat and after a deep breath she looked back up with her head held high.

"That means we don't have a lot of time, I need some time to think over what to do and how to disable this machine without hurting Naruto. Shino do you think you could send a few of your insects over there to take a look at it, I need to know what it does and what would be the safest way to disable it without hurting the person inside." Shikamaru explained, 'this is gonna be troublesome' he thought to himself.

"Don't be too long, the attack could come any day now and now that they have Naruto, I'd say their plan has accelerated." The Raikage told them. They nodded and walked out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah I wiki'd about Shino being able to communicate with his insects :3 I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter ^=_=^


	8. Chapter 8

Naruto looked up quickly when he saw the man with the mask enter the room, he was holding something shiny in his hand and Naruto tensed up.

"We're going to put you in the machine, just a test for now but we'll probably keep you there just in case. You'll be getting something to eat now as well...just to keep your energy levels up." He said casually.

"What is that in your hand?" Naruto asked suspiciously.

"Oh this?" The man asked as he held up an injection. "This is just a small sedative so we can put you in the machine, we need to put you into the machine with these huge chakra cuffs but knowing you; we've decided to keep some chakra wire on you and just wire them to the cuffs so we don't waste any." The man told him truthfully.

Another man entered the room before Naruto could say anything; this one had long blonde hair and a scar on his cheek. He had a bowl of rice in hands and Naruto began to realise just how hungry he was when he saw it, without saying anything, the man held up a spoonful of rice and offered it to Naruto. Noting that they wouldn't let him go to eat himself, he glared but lent forward to eat the rice anyway, as soon as he had finished the bowl, the man in the mask came over to inject him at lightning speed.

"Get away from me-ttebayo!" Naruto struggled, causing his wounds to drip a little more but he couldn't get far enough away and felt a pricking sensation on his neck. Before Naruto could lose consciousness, he saw an insect flying around; not just any insect but one of Shino's. Naruto closed his eyes and appeared before Kurama.

"This is bad Naruto!" Kurama told him worriedly.

"I know but one of Shino's insects is in here, meaning they are close by. Plus the guy said they were going to test the machine and see if it worked?" Naruto replied hopefully, trying to see if he could push himself up to the surface but not being able to reach it. "They must have drugged me before; it's the same thing, I'm always so close but not able to reach It." He added worriedly.

"You were drugged before, Naruto maybe I should talk to Gyuki again...this is getting bad, once you are in that machine, no one in the Cloud can help you. It basically affects their lightning chakra; it turns the Jutsu users Jutsu against them and can burn them up from the inside. Not only that but once the machine does this to them, these rogue shinobi are intending to blow up the Cloud village using you as their power source." Kurama told Naruto the information Gyuki and Bee had told him as best as he could.

"What?" Naruto exclaimed with a shocked face. "They can't do that dattebayo!" Naruto began pacing angrily, wishing he could just go home and that this was just some bad dream he was having.

"Well that's what Bee told me, it was also what Hinata's mission was all about before the added abduction of you came into it." Kurama explained.

"It's just so stupid-ttebayo, what do they hope to achieve by doing this, they take down the Cloud village but then what? Try and take down another village? If they really intended for me to die just taking down the Cloud village what..." Naruto turned to Kurama slowly. "You don't think that after they use me to destroy the Cloud, they'd take Octopops do you?" He asked worriedly.

"I don't know but if they don't come for you soon, things could get worse. I'm going to go to Gyuki again and tell them what's up, will you be alright?" Kurama asked.

"Yeah I'll be fine, see you soon." Naruto told him with a smile. Kurama nodded and closed his eyes, leaving to speak to Gyuki, Naruto sighed and sat down.

It's bad enough they took him to power a machine until he died but to make him be part of the destruction of an entire village full of his friends and innocent villagers was just terrible. Naruto sighed exasperatedly, trying to wrack his brain for anything useful, this was always Shikamaru's expertise; to be able to come up with strategies and think of anything on the spot was his talent.

Sighing again he tried to push himself towards the surface to wake up; the guy did say it would be a small sedative so maybe it wouldn't last as long as before. He concentrated hard before pushing himself as far as he could, so close but not quite reaching it. Trying again, he managed to slowly wake up, he groggily looked around and saw no one in front of him but he could hear them close by. His hands where in cuffs above his head and his legs were cuffed to the bottom of the compartment he was in, chakra wire was still imbedded around his body so that anytime he tried to move it would dig painfully into his skin.

"So you're awake? Just a little warning, we're going to test it now." One of the shinobi said, closing the compartment door on him, there was a glass window that he could see everything through and he still hadn't decided if that was a good thing or not.

"Stop! Let me go!" Someone shouted, Naruto tried to lean forward to get a good look, ignoring the pain it caused. A young Cloud ninja was being dragged towards him, he was forced to watch, powerless as they had this young ninja tied to a chair and pointed the chakra machine towards him. Naruto began to shake his head and shout for them to stop but his voice was lost behind the noise of the machine as they powered it up.

Naruto nearly bit his tongue as he clenched his teeth so fast in pain; the chakra that was being ripped from his wrist was a substantial amount. Looking up he could see the young shinobi's body getting redder and redder as it was like he was burning up, he began to scream as holes appeared on his body and they started to seep blood.

Naruto looked on in horror before he closed his eyes and went back to Kurama; even if the rogue ninja tried to speak to him this time they could have thought he fainted.

"Naruto! Are you alright? I felt your chakra being tugged so I came right back." Kurama said quickly.

Naruto didn't look up, he just stood there in silence; not being able to get the young ninja's face out of his mind. "Naruto!" Kurama shouted, breaking Naruto out of his reverie.

"Sorry Kurama...They tested out the machine, I thought it was just going to be a small test which just tests my chakra but they had a ninja from the Cloud, he must have only been 14 possibly younger. He's dead." Naruto explained quietly, still in shock.

"..." Kurama didn't know what to say, knowing that Naruto could get like this and feel guilty about it. "Naruto, you need to stay here. At least for a while, I will go up." Kurama said, knowing that it would be better if Naruto didn't see anything like that again.

"Okay." Naruto simply replied.

Kurama pushed himself up, no longer trying to hide his Kyubi eyes and looked around; he saw the poor kid being dragged away and noticed a shinobi coming towards him.

Kurama stayed quiet when the door was opened and glared at the shinobi, hoping they would think that Naruto was simply just angry.

"What did you think? The machine is amazing right? We stole it a few months back and decided to take over an entire village with it, first we'll deal with the Raikage and his Jinchuriki brother, then anyone who opposes us will suffer the same fate as that young ninja over there. They either join us or die and that's how we will build our army to take over other villages, one day soon, it'll be the leaf's turn." The dark-haired shinobi said with a grin, Kurama just stared angrily hoping the guy would leave soon.

"Nothing to say? Very well but just know that we're about to put our plans into action as the test was a complete success." He told him before leaving and closing the compartment door.

Kurama growled angrily, looking around for any sign that someone was coming; Gyuki and Bee had assured him the rescue team was on its way. He saw a flash of green but he couldn't be sure and before he had the time to process what it was, the machine rumbled to life. Worried, he tried pulling on the chakra cuffs, anything he did would irritate Naruto's wounds with the chakra wire and if he tried to add chakra to his attempts, it would go straight to the cuff.

He growled as he felt a large amount of his chakra being taken, since he was taking over for the moment they were taking his, which would buy Naruto some time but he wouldn't be able to last like this; soon they'd be taking Naruto's chakra and he would be powerless to stop it.

Kurama watched as they fired a cannonball at the village but before it could make contact, a bright green light flew up and seemingly knocked it out of the way.

"SHANNAROOO!" Sakura's voice could be heard before the red-haired ninja went flying past the window with a crash.

"Sakura, Sasuke take that side. Sai, provide support from the air, Lee keep knocking the cannonballs out of the way, Shino, use your insects to poison the one controlling the machine. Kiba, Akamaru, protect Shino because he has to disable it." Shikamaru said as soon as Lee knocked the first cannonball down, Hinata was protecting Shikamaru as he was essential to their team's success. A dark-haired shinobi came running towards them as he soon figured out that Shikamaru was their leader.

Hinata used her gentle fist to push the ninja back allowing Shikamaru to trap him with his Shadow Possession Jutsu. He then used his Shadow strangulation Jutsu as quick as he could as it wouldn't last very long, the dark-haired shinobi began to choke and struggle against the shadow bindings however, as Shikamaru began to feel his chakra weakening, he gave a final push and snapped the shinobi's neck.

"You shall regret that." A man with the mask promised as he stood and faced them off, the machine let off another cannonball as Lee jumped up and punched it towards a forest, he panted heavily as he landed.

"No you will be the ones who will regret kidnapping a shinobi from the leaf." Shikamaru replied as he sent his shadow out for the chase. The man managed to dodge and ran around intending to hit Shikamaru from behind but Hinata jumped and kicked the man in the face, sending him flying. She then stood and faced him with her palm out and Byakugan activated.

"That's the guy who took Naruto." Pakkun's voice could be heard amongst the flurry of activity.

Hinata's eyes narrowed as the man stood up calmly and grabbed his Kunai. "Prepare to die girl." He hissed and he headed straight towards her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have to go to my nana's now but I'm sorry for any mistakes, I'll fix them later and I'm sorry if this chapters a bit shit lol Hope you enjoyed :3


	9. Chapter 9

The man with mask ran towards Hinata and tried to hit her with the Kunai, Hinata watched his movements carefully with her Byakugan before using her Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm and knocked him back several feet.

The man stood up with a glare. "Very good but let's see how you handle this." He said before making a few quick hand signs and blowing a large amount of fire her way.

Hinata acted quickly, knowing she couldn't dodge it in case Shikamaru got hit; she began to spin, using her chakra to deflect the flames from both her and Shikamaru.

"Tch..." The man made an annoyed sound. "You're really getting on my nerves." He said as he came closer, he made five shadow clones and they all charged for Hinata at once, she managed to dodge 4 of their attacks and landed a blow on one of them; making it disappear in a cloud of smoke. Hinata fell back as she was punched, hard, on her face and she looked up angrily as she wiped the blood from her lip and stood up.

"You should just give up girl; the Kyubi's going to die soon anyway so you will have done all this for nothing." The man taunted.

"His name is Uzumaki Naruto and the Kyubi is called Kurama, and there is no way I would give up because that is my Nindo; my Ninja Way!" Hinata said determinedly. She focused her chakra into her fists until her Twin Lions appeared, the man's eyes widened as he took a step back before creating more shadow clones and charging for her.

Hinata ran towards him, she managed to hit four of the shadow clones and hit the man in the chest, he laughed as he prepared his chakra for his next attack before he coughed out blood into his mask and looked at her in anger.

"What have you done to me?" He shouted angrily, clearly not having experienced a battle with a Hyuuga before.

"I cut off chakra to your heart." Hinata told him with narrowed eyes.

"Good job Hinata." Shikamaru told her as he watched the man fall to his knees.

Meanwhile...

Sakura ran towards the red-haired shinobi as he stood up and used a water prison Jutsu to try and seal her, she used a substitution Jutsu and then used her Cherry Blossom Impact technique behind him; managing to break his leg as he flew several feet away from her.

Sasuke swung his Katana at a blue-haired ninja who tried to attack her from behind, cutting the man's arm off before he could touch her. The man screamed and desperately ran at Sasuke with a kunai before being impaled in the chest with his Katana; he spat blood out of his mouth before dropping to the ground.

"Why do you care so much?! It's only a Jinchuriki!" The red-haired shinobi screamed as Sakura began to walk closer to him.

"That Jinchuriki is my friend." Sakura said before focusing all her chakra into her foot, lifting her leg and slamming him into the ground, effectively silencing him.

"Sakura we need to get to Kiba and Shino quick, there are more rogues trying to stop them from deactivating the machine." Sasuke told her as he was watching the flurry of activity with his Sharingan.

"Lee how are you holding up?" Shikamaru asked him, Lee was on his sixth gate and panting heavily, every so often a cannonball would be shot and Lee would have to knock it back periodically and it was beginning to take its toll.

"I'm fine; I will save this village with the power of youth!" Lee said tiredly, probably more for his own benefit that than anyone else's.

"Sai, what's happening?" Shikamaru shouted up to Sai.

"Kiba and Shino are surrounded, the rogue shinobi are determined to keep the machine going so they are all heading there, there are only 6 left though." Sai reported, drawing tigers and sending them down to help.

Hinata had already joined her teammates, wanting to get Naruto out of the machine as quick as possible; grunts of pain could be heard from inside as the chakra was being pulled and she was worried it would be too late if they took any longer.

Shino had poisoned the white-haired shinobi that was operating the machine but he was still alive and determined to put up a good fight. The rest of the rogue ninja were trying to defend him as much as they could; determined not to let them anywhere near the machine.

Most of the rogue ninja were suffering from injuries and knew they weren't going to win this battle but they were determined to bring Naruto down with them. Kiba and Akamaru attacked a blond-haired ninja simultaneously and managed to take him down but not before he threw a flame seal at them. They flew back, earning a few minor burns but they stood up and ran back as fast as they could towards Shino as he was being attacked by three ninja.

"Shannaroo!" Sakura shouted as she punched a ninja with her chakra, dodging a thrusting Kunai before kicking another ninja into the ground. Sasuke used his Amaterasu technique and set two other shinobi on fire; they screamed as they ran and tried to roll on the ground to put themselves out but Sasuke kept his focus on them and before long, they stopped moving.

Hinata used her gentle fist to stop the chakra of the last ninja that was attacking Shino; she aimed for the all of the chakra points she could reach and the ninja dropped like a stone to the ground as he clutched his chest tightly.

Shino ran to the entrance of the machine, sending his insects in to jam it's circuits in the safest way so Naruto wouldn't be harmed, with a last Cannonball, deflected by an exhausted Lee, the machine shut down.

Hinata ran to the front of the machine to see if Naruto was okay, the others stayed behind so she could have a moment with him. As she opened the door, she gasped in horror; Naruto's formerly white t-shirt and pyjama bottoms were stained with blood and his bottom lip was cut and puffy but it looked like it was already starting to heal.

"Naruto-Kun? Are you okay?" She asked anxiously as he hadn't looked up, her Byakugan was still activated so she could see his heart was still beating, she pulled her Kunai out and began carefully cutting the chakra wire around him.

"I'm sorry Hinata but it's not Naruto." Kurama replied as he tiredly opened his eyes, showing Hinata the blood-red hue on the normally blue-eyed boy's eyes.

"Kurama? Are you okay? How is Naruto-Kun?" Hinata asked worriedly.

"I'm okay, thank you." Kurama answered as Naruto's face smiled kindly at her but the smile fell quickly. "Naruto isn't doing so well; he was forced to witness the machine kill a Cloud shinobi who was quite young. I told him that I would take over so he wouldn't have to see anything like that again but he's been unresponsive ever since...I need you to come inside, maybe you can reach him." Kurama explained.

"Okay." Hinata replied nervously, wanting to help Naruto as soon as possible, she freed him from the cuffs and helped him sit down in front of the machine.

"I need you to sit across from me and hold out your fist." Kurama told her, she did what was requested and closed her eyes as he held Naruto's fist against hers.

Hinata opened her eyes and looked around quickly; Kurama, in his original form, pointed a large hand towards Naruto who was sitting down and staring off into space.

"Naruto-Kun!" She shouted as she ran towards him, she knelt down in front of him and looked into his eyes. "Naruto-Kun? Are you okay? We're here to save you." Hinata told him gently.

"Hinata?" Naruto said slowly, he suddenly seemed to focus on her and he stood up quickly and rushed to pull her into a tight hug. "For a while there I thought I'd never see you again-ttebayo!" He exclaimed, squeezing her tighter.

Hinata was surprised by his speed but hugged him back just as tight. "I'm glad we saved you in time, I was worried for a while but I knew that you wouldn't give up." Hinata replied, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to come out.

"I didn't for a long time and then they used me to burn that kid and I just snapped." Naruto told her honestly, knowing he could tell her anything and she would never judge him or tell anyone, he pulled back so he could look at her face.

"There wasn't anything you could do Naruto-Kun, just remember that." Hinata told him reassuringly.

"I know but I can't help but feel like I could have done something dattebayo." Naruto said, looking down sadly. Naruto looked back up when he felt gentle fingers on his cheek and he was met with bright lilac eyes and a kind face.

"It'll be okay Naruto-Kun, let's go home." Hinata told him softly, closing her eyes as she smiled.

Naruto stared at her smile for a while, emotions running through him and without meaning to, he leaned down and kissed her. Hinata was shocked by the suddenness but was quick to kiss him back happily, she put her arms around his shoulders and he circled his arms at her waist.

After a few seconds Kurama cleared his throat, causing them to jump apart sheepishly. "I'm sorry Kurama." Hinata said with a blush.

Kurama just chuckled and lay down as he was exhausted from chakra loss. Naruto waved at Kurama before he turned to Hinata with a small smile and he pulled both of them up to the surface. They opened their eyes and dropped their fists, Naruto winced with a hiss of pain as the movement irritated his wounds.

"You need to get those seen to and I think your bandage is torn." Hinata told him anxiously, helping her injured boyfriend stand up and lifting his arm around her shoulder so she could help him walk.

"Thank you Hinata, I think the bandage will last until I get home." Naruto told her with a fond smile, he gingerly walked towards his friends with the help of Hinata and stopped when he saw Sasuke. "Hey I didn't know you were back." He exclaimed happily. "Sorry for the trouble everyone." He added attempting to rub behind his neck but hissing as the movement hurt his arm.

Everyone stared at him in shock, his pyjamas were covered in blood and the tears in his skin created quite a horrific sight.

"I came back yesterday morning." Sasuke told him quietly, preferring to have a full conversation with him in private.

"I'll help you sit him down Hinata; I'm just going to start healing the worst wounds here." Sakura said with worried eyes.

"I'll be fine Sakura-Chan. I heal fast remember?" Naruto told her with a tired smile, Sakura simply just ignored him and set to work.

"I'm so glad we were able to save you with the power of youth!" Lee said with an equally tired grin and a thumbs up.

Naruto smiled and gave him a careful thumbs up too. "Thanks for everything you guys. I'd probably be a goner without all of you." Naruto told them all gratefully, Hinata stayed by his side, helping Sakura heal any big wounds which were particularly nasty.

"We're just glad you're okay Naruto. I was wondering if you could tell us about how you got kidnapped, do you remember what happened?" Shikamaru asked him curiously.

"I just remember walking Hinata home, going home and taking a shower and then someone tried to choke me and did something to my neck before everything went black." Naruto explained, Hinata gasped quietly as she hadn't realised he had went missing so soon after their date and Naruto turned to her worriedly. "It's okay Hinata, there was nothing you could have done. Nobody could have known-ttebayo." Naruto told her with a reassuring smile.

"I'm still pissed that guy managed to go through the entire village to your apartment without being seen." Kiba said with an angry look.

"I would say Kakashi-Sama will up the security around the village to make sure this doesn't happen ever again." Sai replied thoughtfully.

Hinata and Sakura finished patching up the worst of Naruto's wounds. "Thank you Hinata and Sakura-Chan, I feel so much better." Naruto said as he stood up, moving a lot less stiffly than he did before.

After a brief meeting with the Raikage and a not so brief meeting with Killer Bee, the leaf ninja found themselves at a campsite that Shikamaru had deemed was safe. Naruto was exhausted and since he didn't have a sleeping bag, Hinata let him have hers as she wanted to watch over him. He gave her fond smile when he found out that she had actually taken his jacket on her mission and chuckled in amusement as she explained through a blush that she had been using the jacket as her pillow.

Bee had given Naruto some spare clothes that were slightly too big for him but he was just glad to be out of the bloodstained pyjamas he had been wearing, he watched Hinata tiredly watching the area for any danger and sat up worriedly.

"Hey, if you want to sleep I don't mind giving you the sleeping bag." He told her.

"It's okay Naruto-Kun, you need the sleep more than I do...I don't think I'll be able to sleep anyway." She told him quietly, trying not to wake anyone else up.

"Why not? Do you want to talk about it?" He asked her in a gentle voice, she gave him an affectionate look at his concern.

"Well, it's just that...I almost lost you." Hinata whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear.

Naruto's face softened as he could see that she was desperately trying to hold back her tears as the tough front she had put up all day had started to wear off, he pulled her closer to him and hugged her. "I'm okay, thanks to you Hinata." He promised her. "Here, take the sleeping bag and lie down." He told her as he got up and began moving away.

Hinata grabbed his hand shyly, refusing to meet his eyes. "Umo..." She said quietly.

"Do you want me to stay with you?" Naruto asked her nervously, his own cheeks darkening slightly.

She nodded jerkily and he gave her an affectionate smile, he thought she looked so cute when she was like this. He joined her in the sleeping bag (it was large enough to fit both of them) and lay on his back, he set his jacket under her head and an arm under his own. Hinata lay stiffly beside him; too shy to make eye contact.

"Thank you." She whispered quietly.

"It's really no problem Hinata." Naruto told her with his grin that he reserved for her.

She turned to look at him on her side, "I'm really happy you're okay Naruto-Kun." She said with a sleepy smile.

Naruto just watched her with a content smile as she closed her tired eyes and fell asleep, it wasn't long until he fell asleep himself and if Hinata found herself sleeping on his chest with his arms around her in the middle of the night, well then that was okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to end it here, there will be one more chapter left, kind of like an epilogue but not really. I also want you to know that I'm sorry if the fight scenes were a bit weak but I'm not that great at writing things like that hope you have enjoyed. :3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! 10 chapters! I made it :3 I hope you enjoyed this fic 3

It had been a week since the abduction fiasco; Naruto was walking home after training with Konohamaru and Hanabi, Konohamaru had been torturing him all week to teach him the new stage in the Rasengan but Naruto suspected it was just an excuse to hang out with him as he knew Konohamaru was worried for him.

When they had come back to the village, Konohamaru had been waiting for him anxiously and ran to hug him. Hinata smiled affectionately as Naruto hugged him back with a gentle smile.

"Didn't know I'd be missed that much." Naruto said jokingly.

Konohamaru pulled back quickly. "Whatever Naruto-Nii-Chan I was just worried because I wanted to learn the next stage in the Rasengan." He replied indignantly.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Naruto told him with a grin and ruffled his hair.

"We need to report to Kakashi-Sama before we do anything else." Shikamaru informed them. Naruto nodded before turning back to Konohamaru. "You wanna come with?" He asked him, knowing that despite trying to act tough, Konohamaru was reluctant to leave him.

"Sure, I've got nothing better to do anyway." He said with a pout but his eyes had lit up. Hinata and Naruto exchanged knowing smiles before heading towards the Hokage tower with everyone else in tow.

"Ah Naruto-Kun, I'm so glad you're back safe." Shizune told him fondly.

"Thank you Shizune, glad to be back." Naruto told her with a grin. He knocked on Kakashi's door and entered after hearing him beckoning them in.

"Naruto! I'm so glad to see you in one piece." Kakashi said cheerfully, "well done everyone on your successful rescue mission." He added to the group.

"Thank you Kakashi-Sensei." Naruto told him gratefully.

"I have the full report here Kakashi-Sama." Shikamaru told him, handing him a scroll.

"Thank you Shikamaru, you can all go home now and rest." He told them smiling happily.

"I just want to let you guys know that I'm really thankful you saved me." Naruto said to everyone as they left the room, rubbing the back of his neck shyly.

"Anytime." Kiba said with a smirk, Akamaru barked and Shino nodded with a small smile.

"Just try and not get kidnapped next time." Shikamaru told his friend with a fond smile.

Naruto chuckled lightly. "Well I'll try but I make no promises." Naruto told him with a grin.

"We'll meet up with you later, okay Naruto?" Sakura told him happily.

"Sure I'll see you guys later." Naruto said with a soft smile. Sasuke nodded, watching Sakura walk for a bit before turning to Naruto and giving him a hidden smile before walking away.

"Naruto-Nii-Chan, can I stay at your house tonight?" Konohamaru asked him with a hopeful expression.

"Yeah no problem. Any requests?" Naruto asked him, referring to food that Konohamaru might like.

"Nah, Mom said she'll make me a bento because she doesn't believe you would have proper food." Konohamaru replied bluntly. Naruto blushed slightly as he glanced at Hinata and glanced away quickly.

"It's not that bad, after last time I stocked up on proper food dattebayo." Naruto mumbled in shame.

Hinata chuckled at his awkwardness and his complexion turned a few shades darker.

"We only ate Ramen the entire time Nii-Chan." Konohamaru told him with an evil grin.

"How am I not surprised? We're gonna get going too, see you later." Shikamaru said with a chuckle as everyone but Hinata and Konohamaru left.

"I'm gonna go home and pack, I'll be over at 7." Konohamaru said before leaving with another smirk.

"I swear I don't ONLY eat Ramen." Naruto tried to reassure Hinata.

Hinata giggled as she walked off, knowing he would follow.

"You gotta believe me Hinata!" Naruto begged as he followed her quickly.

"Hai hai." She said with a kind smile. "I don't believe you only eat Ramen, nobody would be able to survive like that."

"Okay, I will admit that I do eat Ramen a lot but on occasion...I will eat rice and stuff." He told her honestly as they walked towards the Hyuuga compound.

Konohamaru had stayed over that night and they had spent their time watching movies and talking. The rest of the week was spent training with Konohamaru and Hanabi during the day and meeting with his friends or Hinata in the evenings.

He smiled as he thought over all that had happened, shortly letting out a yawn as he was tired from training. When he reached his apartment, he unlocked his apartment door and said his customary "I'm home" as he took off his shoes.

"Welcome back, Naruto-Kun!" Hinata exclaimed with a happy smile as she came to greet him, her smile fell as she noticed he hadn't moved in almost a minute; he had a shocked expression and was just staring at her. Hinata blushed in embarrassment. "Umo...I'm sorry Naruto-Kun, I thought that since you had been training so hard this week that I would cook us dinner but I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable...I could leave if you're not feeling up to company?" She told him sheepishly.

As soon as Hinata suggested leaving Naruto shook his head happily and rushed over to hug her tightly, he had happy tears in his eyes that he was desperately trying to hold back because he didn't want to freak her out. That overwhelming feeling in his heart was stronger than ever and he just couldn't hold it back this time.

"I love you Hinata!" He said softly, voice thick with emotion.

Hinata gasped and tried to pull back to look at his face but he wouldn't stop hugging her. "What did you say Naruto-Kun?" She asked in a surprised tone.

Naruto pulled back to look at her, sliding his hands down hers arms until they were holding hands at their sides. "I said I love you. Last week, when all that stuff was going on, I couldn't stop thinking about you and I know I should have said it sooner but I was just worried it would freak you out or something-ttebayo." Naruto said honestly, holding back the urge to rub his neck so she would know he was serious.

Hinata stared at him in awe, her eyes started to well up with tears and a huge grin lit up on her face. "I love you too Naruto-Kun!" She told him happily.

Naruto laughed cheerfully and pulled her into kiss, nearly squeezing the life out of her as he lifted her up by the waist, she raised her arms around his neck and they both smiled happily into the kiss. Naruto span her around once before setting her down and letting her go, but not for too long as he came back for another hug.

"So is that a yes to dinner?" Hinata asked him affectionately.

"Of course, I can't wait-ttebayo." He told her, giving her another quick kiss before heading into the bathroom for a shower.

When he had finished, Hinata had brought their plates into the living room and was waiting for him with a smile. Naruto grinned as he sat down next to her and picked up his chopsticks.

"Itadakimasu!" Naruto said before tucking in, his eyes widened after the first bite. "This is amazing Hinata, you're an amazing cook." He told her.

Hinata smiled shyly, "thank you Naruto-Kun." She told him affectionately.

When they finished their meal, Naruto picked up the plates quickly as he would feel bad if Hinata washed the dishes as well. He debated leaving the dishes in the sink for later but changed his mind when he saw her walk in.

"I can do those Naruto-Kun." Hinata said worriedly.

"No Hinata, I couldn't let you do that after making dinner as well." He told her as he got to work. Hinata smiled fondly and stood up on her tip-toes to kiss him on the cheek.

"Thank you." She said warmly.

Naruto turned his head quickly and kissed her gently. "It's okay, go on into the living room and relax, we can watch a movie and if you want I can make you tea?" Naruto told her affectionately.

"Hai." She replied, closing her eyes as she smiled.

Hinata left the room and turned on his television as she sat down on his couch, after a few minutes, Naruto walked in with two cups of tea and he set them on the table. "I'll be right back." He said as he walked into his bedroom and brought out his blankets began setting up a sizeable blanket fort. Once he had finished he settled himself down, making a huge show of getting comfortable before picking up his cup of tea with a grin. "Much better." He told her.

Hinata giggled at his shenanigans and cuddled into him with her own cup. "Thank you for this Naruto-Kun." She said gratefully as she began to feel warm and content.

"There's no need to thank me, I love you and I want to do stuff like this all the time." He told her bluntly causing her cheeks to warm up.

"Me too." She told him shyly. They finished their teas and settled together to watch a film, Hinata fell asleep half-way through the film and he brushed his hand through her hair, watching her as she slept. She looked so peaceful like this and Naruto felt happy and content in his chest, she was perfect and part of him felt like he didn't deserve her but when she sighed happily and snuggled into him more, those thoughts disappeared.

Naruto struggled to stay awake as he began rubbing circles on her back, the film's credits were rolling and he was quickly running out of excuses to stay awake. He smiled as he pulled her closer to him and closed his eyes, thinking he could get used to her being with him forever, the scent of her hair, her soft skin and her overall kind and calming nature. With his thoughts consumed with Hinata, he was lulled into a deep and comfortable sleep, something he hadn't ever experienced before as he was always lonely and unhappy but able to cover it up with confident grins and tough words. Hinata never judged him though, even when she knew everything about him and his insecurities, she never doubted him, never judged, never shunned him and no matter what, he was going to pay this beautiful woman in his arms back for everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's it, I hope you enjoyed this...I'll probably end up adding more to this chapter I don't know but I love it. This chapter is probably cheesy as hell but I just knew I wanted to write about the being greeted when he came home thing ^=_=^. Feel free to leave a comment if you'd like and thanks for reading :3 Welp I added more :L

**Author's Note:**

> Okay I should have this done...hopefully by Christmas, I'm just too tired to add anymore at the moment. Sorry for the cliffy but I'm so tired so hopefully you won't have to wait too long :)


End file.
